In a hybrid vehicle which is driven and running by combining an engine and an electrical motor, an engine load in a heating operation is decreased in accordance with increase of an engine efficiency. For example, even in the heating operation in the winter, it is required to reduce the engine load in order to improve the fuel consumption efficiency, and thereby the heat quantity in the heating operation is reduced.
In the recent years, because of the high efficiency of the engine, it is difficult to obtain a sufficient heating source for performing the heating operation. In this situation, Patent Document 1 (JP Patent No. 2960243) describes regarding a vehicle air conditioner.
If conditioned air is blown to predetermined plural positions in a vehicle compartment regardless of an occupant number and an occupant state in the vehicle compartment, conditioned air may be blown to positions without having the occupant, and thereby it is difficult to perform promptly cooling or heating operation of the vehicle compartment. In the vehicle air conditioner described in Patent Document 1, an occupant-seated state in the vehicle compartment is detected, so that cooling or heating capacity is determined based on the occupant-seated state, and the air state to be blown into the vehicle compartment is controlled.
In Patent Document 1, a detail movement of an occupant, such as occupant's cardiac beats and breathings, is detected by an occupant detection means, thereby controlling the cooling or heating capacity and the air state to be blown into the vehicle compartment in accordance with a signal from the occupant detection means. In the present specification, the occupant includes the driver seated on the driver's seat, a passenger seated on the front-passenger's seat next to the driver's seat, or any passenger seated on the rear seat in the vehicle compartment.
More specifically, the occupant detection means detects presence or absence of an occupant based on occupant's cardiac beats and breathings. When the occupant's presence is detected, the cooling or heating capacity is determined in accordance with an occupant's number, and cooling or heating operation is performed by blowing conditioned air to only the occupant's presence position. When only the driver is in the vehicle compartment, that is, when the occupant's number is 1, conditioned air is blown to be concentrated to the one position of the driver in the vehicle compartment.
Patent Document 2 (JP 2008-296717A) describes regarding a vehicle air conditioner. In the vehicle air conditioner of Patent Document 2, when a control means determines that the occupant is only the driver based on a detection result of a seat detection means, a driver-seat concentrating mode is set so that the temperature of the driver's seat space is rapidly adjusted. Among the plural air outlets, air outlets other than for the driver's seat space are closed by an air outlet switching means, so that the temperature of the driver's seat space of the vehicle compartment is controlled to effectively approach to a set temperature. In the vehicle air conditioner of Patent Document 2, because the conditioned air can be blown to the driver's seat space in a concentrated manner, the driver's seat space of the vehicle compartment can effectively approach to the set temperature.
In a vehicle air conditioner of Patent Document 3 (JP Patent No. 3573682), air conditioning is independently performed for a first zone of a driver's seat side and for a second zone of a front-passenger's seat side in a vehicle compartment. When operation mode is manually changed from an air blowing mode to another mode in one of the first zone of the driver's seat side and the second zone of the front-passenger's seat side so as to change an air flow resistance, the total air flow resistance is changed. Thus, the air amount blown to the other one of the first zone of the driver's seat side and the second zone of the front-passenger's seat side may be changed.
In the vehicle air conditioner of Patent Document 3, an air-amount correction calculation portion is provided to correct an operation of a fan motor based on an air flow resistance, such that even when one of the air outlet modes of the first and second zones is changed manually in an automatic control, the other one of the air outlet modes of the first and second zones is not changed. That is, the vehicle air conditioner is independently controlled such that, even when the air amount blown to the first zone is changed, the air amount blown to the second zone is not changed.
However, in the vehicle air conditioners described above, it is difficult to effectively perform a one-seat priority mode control with a simple structure while fuel consumption efficiency can be improved in the vehicle.